Your Shout: Sander Westerveld Loan Deal Wrong
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Newcastle-Online.com reader TJ writes in bemoaning the FA Premier
League rules that has seen Everton allowed permission to sign goalkeeper
Sander Westerveld on loan as emergency cover after suffering a number
of injuries and suspensions between the sticks.
Should teams who have players sent off be punished for their transgressions?
The obvious answer is yes and football's current regulations support
this view: if a team's player receives a red card, both he and his
club are punished by his subsequent suspension for one or more matches.
So why, then, is the Premier League undermining this system right
now? Actually, what it is doing is even more extreme than that - it
is actively rewarding a team, Everton, for the suspension of one of
their players: Iain Turner.
It goes like this - going into their game against Blackburn last weekend,
Everton had two available goalkeepers in their squad: Iain Turner
and John Ruddy (Nigel Martyn and Richard Wright both being injured).
Neither Turner nor Ruddy had played in the Premiership before - indeed,
Everton had recalled Turner from loan to cover for the loss of Martyn
and Wright. So Turner makes his Premiership debut against Blackburn.
Eight minutes in, he is sent off for deliberate handball outside his
area, denying a goal-scoring opportunity. Ruddy comes on and plays
the rest of the match.
According to the rules, Turner is suspended for at least the next
domestic game, which is against Newcastle United at St. James' Park,
leaving Everton with only one available keeper, Ruddy. So Everton
go cap in hand to the Premier League and argued they have only one
available goalkeeper for their game against us, so should be allowed
to make an emergency loan signing so they could have a keeper on the
field and another on the bench.
The Premier League allows for emergency signings of this kind to prevent
a possible situation where a club cannot field a full squad/fill the
bench because of injuries/illness, because this solution is preferable
to the Premier League than postponing matches. So the Premier League
sanctions Everton making the emergency loan signing of Portsmouth's
Sander Westerveld, who is likely to start in goal against Newcastle.
So everyone is happy, right?
Well, no - I am seriously unhappy. Everton are down to one keeper
because of suspension. What is the point in forcing a player who receives
a red card to miss subsequent games if not to punish both the player
and his club? By sanctioning Everton bringing in a loan signing outside
of the transfer window, the Premier League is undermining this punishment.
Sander Westerveld is an experienced keeper, has won a few caps for
The Netherlands and was a regular for Liverpool in the Premiership
- Turner, the suspended player who Westerveld has been brought in
to cover for, is a teenager with eight minuts of Premiership football
under his belt. Ruddy, the only other available goalkeeper Everton
have, has 82 minutes of Premiership experience from the same game
against Blackburn that Turner was sent off in.
I don't know enough about Turner or Ruddy to know whether they are
better goalkeepers than Westerveld, but I know most teams would rather
face an untested kid in goal than a former Holland international.
The Westerveld deal is a joke - far from being punished, Everton are
being rewarded for the sending-off of one of their players: instead
of having to field a 19-year-old with less than a full game in top-flight
football and with no goalkeeping cover on the bench, the Premier League
has allowed them to bring in an international goalkeeper who will
in all probability start the game. And the team that is put at a disadvantage?
Newcastle United.
By TJ
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